This paper analyses the changes to the tax and social security systems that have occurred since Czechoslovakia's `velvet revolution' in 1989. It shows how the tax system is moving to meet the requirements of a market economy. It suggests that a particularly high priority has to be given to...

The paper investigates four challenges to exchange rate stability in the coming years and explores their implications for macroeconomic and exchange rate policy. The first section explores the importance of seigniorage in financing the government budget in Southern European countries. The second...

A new theory of price determination suggests that if primary surpluses are independent of the level of debt, the price level has to ‘jump’ to assure fiscal solvency. In this regime (which we call fiscal dominant), monetary policy has to work through seignorage to control the price level. If,...

The microeconomic foundations provided by the 'disequilibrium' macro-modelling approach of Barro-Grossman-Malinvaud are used to compare the performance of government spending and taxation as instruments of fiscal demand management in achieving a welfare optimum. Spending is successively treated...

This paper studies the role of automatic stabilizers using a sample of OECD countries and US states. We find that there is a strong and robust negative correlation between measures of government size and the volatility of output. This correlation is robust to the inclusion of a large set of...

This paper investigates the impact of public expenditures and taxation on economic growth using panel data for a sample of OECD countries. The empirical results suggest that fiscal policy influences growth through three main channels. First, the government contributes directly to factor...

We analyze a two-country zone facing a joint inflationary shock and responding with coordinated and uncoordinated monetary and fiscal policies. We show that the standard presumption that the absence of coordination results in an excessive exchange rate appreciation of the zone with respect to...

This paper discusses the EMS and proposals to move towards EMU in the context of recent theoretical and empirical work on international policy coordination. It treats two particular themes: asymmetry among EMS countries and its implications for policy coordination; and the coordination required...

In many countries two decision-making institutions, the government and the central bank, manage fiscal and monetary policy separately. Such decentralization can lead to a change in the optimal inflation-output trade-off. In fact lack of cooperation can result in a change in the position of the...

The development of the seven main OECD economies during the 1970s and 1980s is discussed. Subsequently, wage equations of the error-correction type for the seven largest OECD economies are estimated. The hypothesis of real wage rigidity cannot be rejected for the French, German, Italian and...